Palampur: Palampur legislature Ashish Butail has demanded the state Chief Minister to take over the Vivekananda Medical Research Trust hospital for better utilization of its infrastructure.
The Vivekananda Medical Research Trust was a dream project of former state Chief Minister Shanta Kumar. Trust had entered into a partnership with JP group in 2010 to run super-specialty hospital and even after 10 years private company has failed to start the services and over 70 percent of infrastructure was lying unused at present.
Palampur MLA reminded the CM that the state government had donated prime chunk of land in Palampur for the trust to build a super specialist hospital and even local residents had also donated Rs 23 crore for the institution. Ashish Butail said.
“Since it is a public property, it should be used for the welfare of the public”
Reports of taking the Vivekananda Medical Research Trust over by state government had also made round couple of years back. And if sources believed Shanta Kumar had also given his consent to hand over the institute to the state government.
Ambitious Hospital Project fell to Political Prey
The Vivekananda Medical Research Trust hospital project was mooted by the former state Chief Minister Shanta Kumar. The proposal to set up 500 beds super-specialty medical institution was initiated in 1992 when Shanta Kumar was the state Chief Minister. Initially, the Himachal Pradesh Government and the Apollo Group of Hospitals were jointly executing the project, but after sudden change of the state government in 1992, the Apollo group left it.
Following delay of long 8 years, the project started to see some progress with Shanta Kumar at the helm in the centre as Union Cabinet in 2000. The projected revived and Trust sought public cooperation, which received overwhelming support from the public.
